Nintendo eShop needs a major overhaul to get rid of deceptive advertising and glitchy Switch games

Over the past few weeks, I have purchased several digital games from Nintendo eShop. Sadly, about half of them were incredibly glitchy, like Baldo The Guardian Owls and Sonic Colors Ultimate. Both games have since received post-launch updates. However, that didn’t resolve all of the issues that gamers faced, and in Baldo’s case, the patch still didn’t make the game fully playable. For someone who bought either game in opening week, I feel like I’ve been ripped off. I’m usually not the type to spend a lot of time in the eShop, but this repeated disappointment made me take a long look at it and realize that it’s not only dated but it’s full. of so many fake ads that it makes me question Nintendo’s credibility.

So what exactly would save the eShop? There are a few big changes that need to happen. First of all, Nintendo needs to allow us to manage our eShop feeds and improve search capabilities. Oddly enough, this brings us to the second thing: regulating registrations, starting with banning shovels. Granted, this will take a lot of work from Nintendo, but it will provide a much better experience for developers and gamers.

Organize flows and improve searches

While it’s home to some of the best Nintendo Switch games, Nintendo eShop doesn’t make it easy to find anything other than the latest releases, top-selling titles, and some deals. Think about how many great indie titles you might miss because you can’t organize your eShop feed to your specific preferences. Improving search tools will help us find more games to buy and support developers. As it stands, developers have to manipulate the system to make their games stand out.

As Kotaku reported, several small developers regularly sell their content for less than a dollar on the eShop just so their work has a small chance to appear on those main eShop menus. In some cases, this helps the game sell much better than it did at launch, as explained in a Twitter post by Mike Rose, director of video game publisher No More Robots. It’s a long thread, but I recommend reading everything because it explains very clearly what indie developers have to go through to get their games sold on the eShop or, damn it, even to get a lot of attention to begin with. But here’s the part I’m going to focus on:

At one point, he states that developers are making “insane money manipulating the system. And it will only get worse, and more and more people are realizing it.” For example, he recounts how he experimented with his company’s video game sales on the eShop by offering Not Tonight at 90% Off and Yes, Your Thanks at 40% Off. Not Tonight sold a lot more units and got more eyeballs, while Yes, Your Grace only sold about 13% as much as the other game while earning about 60% of Not Tonight’s revenue. The exciting part is that since the cheapest sale got a lot more attention, Not Tonight has continued to outperform Yes, Your Grace once both games come back to full price. You can easily see why the developers spam the sales page repeatedly when it pays so well.

With the profitability of dropping the price by 90%, developers can muster a pretty penny and drop the price steadily throughout the year. Unfortunately, seeing this quick and easy turnaround encourages some of the more shady developers to download past projects that weren’t fully updated for Switch orders and sell them for pennies, which brings us to our next issue. .

Ban the shovel and regulate registrations

Without a doubt, the worst thing about Nintendo eShop is the amount of trash and shovels on the platform. I’m not talking about Shovel Knight – this is a good boi that never goes wrong – I’m talking about when a company dumps work that’s already published elsewhere on the eShop without making the necessary changes that would make the game run the most. efficiently possible. the switch. This leads to a lot of deceptive ads as some developers upload videos and images of their games running on a different system rather than showing how slow or visually distinct it is on Switch.

There are a lot of bogus advertisements on Nintendo eShop. Better regulations could solve this problem.

Insightful discussion on Reddit allowed players to list the worst offenders at the Switch port. For example, Tequila Works, the developers who brought us The Sexy Brutale and Rime, created some terrible Switch ports for these two games. When they got started they were both way behind and had issues as they came out. Not to mention that the visuals weren’t as beautiful in the Switch version as elsewhere. However, the images and video clip for Rime on the eShop do not show the visual deviation or lag. It’s worth noting that patches and updates have been released for either game, but many gamers still don’t feel that this is enough to fix some of the bigger issues.

Nintendo should fix this bogus advertising problem by forcing developers to upload images and videos captured on Switch to eShop listings or at least leaving a note in the listing that the visuals may be different in the game. These standards should apply to all games currently listed in the store, as well as all future games. Headings which do not make the necessary changes should be deleted.

In a fantasy world, the Japanese games company would have a dedicated team that would check every game and only allow games without issues, but Nintendo doesn’t have time for that when hundreds of games are released on Switch every month. However, they could set up a flagging function for games that contain false advertising or do not perform well. Hell, even a user rating system would help with that, but Nintendo likely won’t implement one because bad ratings would prevent consumers from buying so many games.

On another regulatory note, it has become too common for developers to launch their broken games before they’re ready to go, and then fix them later with a day one, day two, or day 30 patch. As I said before, we saw this recently with Baldo The Guardian Owls and Sonic Colors Ultimate. There is a lot of bureaucracy in these decisions; developers are not always able to hit their launch times, and unexpected issues are often detected after a game has launched. But it is a horrible experience for the consumer when a developer publishes games that have experienced glitch issues and expects us to go through the necessary update levels of Cyberpunk 2077 to play a game that has caught our attention. It looks bad on the developer and Nintendo looks bad on hosting the game.

Not to mention that being repeatedly burned by purchases on the eShop creates a horrible experience for gamers and could prevent us from purchasing games from that specific developer or even the eShop in the future. . The worst part about it all is that it often happens with indie games. I am always keen to support a small studio when I can. But if I constantly have to wonder whether or not I will be able to play the game, I think of the purchase which is ridiculous and hurts the industry in general.

Nintendo’s new Switch OLED model will be released on October 8. It comes with several upgrades including a better screen, better kickstand, better internal storage, and even more a LAN port in the dock. However, suppose Nintendo wants to complete the enhanced experience. In this case, they will update the eShop visually and with improved search capabilities and regulations in place that help protect potential buyers from false advertising. This is the only way to give Nintendo back the credibility that the eShop is losing.

Get in shape

Buying games on the eShop is a gamble. You could get a perfectly functioning title that meets your expectations, or you could get a shovel that is flawed as it all comes out. Unless major changes are put in place very soon, the damage will continue to affect more players.